York Sheriff Faces Two Experienced Challengers

YORK — A Gloucester sheriff's captain and a retired Newport News police detective are challenging York County Sheriff Press Williams in his bid for a fourth term in office.

Williams is only York's second sheriff in nearly 50 years. He was a state trooper in the county for 33 years before he became sheriff in 1984.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Tuesday, October 24, 1995.Information about a public forum for the York County sheriff and House of Delegates candidates in Monday's Local section incorrectly spelled Ralph Worley's name as Morley.

The election pits a well-known and well-connected incumbent against challengers who suggest that Williams lacks the professionalism required to run a modern and effective sheriff's department.

"The sheriff and the `good old boy' system should be replaced with a new, dynamic, energetic leader with a vision for the future," said Danny Diggs, the Gloucester sheriff's captain.

The other challenger, Bob Berryman, put it more mildly: "I think Press has been good at what he did. But I think the times have changed, and Press has not changed with them."

Williams said he feels he's done a good job for the residents and wants to continue.

Williams, 68, is running as an independent. Diggs, 38, is running as a Republican. Berryman, 55, is running as a Democrat. All three are Yorktown residents.

Berryman retired from the Newport News Police Department in 1991 after 27 years working as a patrol officer, detective, instructor and administrator. He now works as a sales representative for Thomas Roofing in Tabb.

This is Berryman's second try for York County sheriff. He ran as an independent in 1991 and got about 20 percent of the votes. That was also a three-way race.

Berryman said he would be "more progressive" than Williams, meaning that he would make the office more visible, accessible and professional.

His goals include securing national accreditation for the department, creating substations in Bruton and Tabb, endorsing a citizen complaint and review board, improving officer training and offering a daily tape-recorded message people could call to find out about crimes reported the day before.

Those steps would give the community more confidence in the department, he said.

He accused Williams of communicating with the community mainly during election years. "There's more in the paper in the last three months than in the past three years," Berryman said.

He was especially critical of a recent drug raid to which Williams invited his wife, his campaign manager, his campaign photographer and several reporters. "You should never ever put your wife, reporters, your campaign manager in that kind of danger," Berryman said, calling the whole thing politically motivated.

Diggs began his law enforcement career 20 years ago as a dispatcher for the Poquoson Police Department. He worked for the York County Sheriff's Office from 1977 until 1989 as a deputy sheriff and then as an investigator.

He went to the Gloucester County Sheriff's Office as a lieutenant in 1989 and now oversees the uniform patrol division, a drug education program called DARE, the budget, personnel, communications, dispatch and media relations.

Diggs maintains that crime in the county has gone up, while morale and productivity have gone down because of poor leadership. Deputies are frustrated, he said, because they don't know what is expected of them, and they feel hiring and promotion decisions are based on favoritism.

Diggs said serious crime in York County increased 33 percent between 1990 and 1992, from 1,200 to 1,600 incidents reported. The rate of crimes solved decreased from 39 percent to 24 percent during that same period and fell to 22 percent in 1993, he said.

If things don't change, crime will continue to increase, no one will feel safe, taxes will go up and property values will go down, Diggs warned.

He also pointed to the difference in education and training between himself and the incumbent.

Williams is a high school graduate and a graduate of the Virginia Police Academy. Diggs said he graduated magna cum laude from Thomas Nelson Community College with an associate's degree in police science.

Diggs also stressed that he's a recent graduate of the FBI National Academy and more than a dozen other training programs on topics like arson investigation, microcomputers in law enforcement, hostage tactics, fingerprint techniques, polygraph examination and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

If elected sheriff, Diggs said, he would set higher standards for hiring, have objective criteria for promotions, raise morale and productivity, create structured crime prevention and domestic violence programs, expand the inmate work detail program and put more emphasis on community policing.